1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a label removing method and apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a label removing method and apparatus for removal of a label which is wound about an article in a belt-shape and adhered to the article.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
A vessel or an article formed from plastic material or glass is provided with a label in various manners. There is a labeling structure in which a label has a front surface printed with patterns and information, and a back surface coated with adhesive agent, and is wound about the center of the article in a manner one distal end of the label is overlapped on the other. In comparison with a packaging structure covering the article in a box made by bending a cardboard, the labeling structure is advantageous in the small amount of the covering material in use, and thus a reduced packaging cost. Also the labeling structure can reduce the size of the covered shape of the material, to reduce its space required in stores where a great numbers of bottles or the like are displayed commercially. The vessel or article after being used is withdrawn collectively by dealers or manufacturers in consideration of effective use of limited resource, and protection of environment. After the label is peeled, the article is crushed and pelleted to be reused as raw material. If the article is safe without damages, it is provided with a new label and recycled.
There is a method in which chemical material is applied to the label for the purpose of peeling from the article. However the chemical material is solvent which damages the article and is harmful to its quality, no matter how reliably the label can be peeled from the article. Thus there are suggestions of peeling a label effectively without use of harmful chemicals. U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,672 (corresponding to JP-A 6-106150) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,658 (corresponding to JP-A 9-54399) as a commonly assigned patent application suggest a method and an apparatus in which a label about an article is cut to form a cut end, and then the cut end is captured to peel the label from the article.
But the structures of those prior documents have various shortcomings. One end of the label is cut straight. The extremely small cut end is chucked and captured before the label is peeled from the article. It is likely that the label is broken at the captured end in the course of the peeling operation. Or the captured end is likely to drop away from the capturing tool. Failure is likely to occur in capturing the cut end. Therefore the reliability in the label peeling is considerably low. Furthermore a tool for capturing the cut end of the label must be positioned with extremely high precision for the purpose of the small cut end minutely peeled from the article. The problem lies in that the positioning of the article requires much time, and is inconsistent to good efficiency in the operation.